The intriguing mystery of your body's microbes

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This week on TED.com February 28, 2015

Talk of the week Rob Knight: How our microbes make us who we are 17:24 minutes · Filmed Feb 2014 · Posted Feb 2015 · TED2014 Rob Knight is a pioneer in studying human microbes, the community of tiny single-cell organisms living inside our bodies that have a huge — and largely unexplored — role in our health. "The three pounds of microbes that you carry around with you might be more important than every single gene you carry around in your genome," he says. Find out why. Watch now »

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Quote of the Week “ Imagine if there were a kind of neglected organ in our bodies that weighed just as much as the brain and in some ways was just as important to who we are. And imagine if, through scientific advances, we were just beginning to understand its importance to how we think of ourselves. Wouldn't you want to know more about it? Well, it turns out that we do have something just like that: our gut, or rather, its microbes. Rob Knight How our microbes make us who we are

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